She has reeled him in and dangles titbits. At various points, Roy Straightly comments that he is mesmerised by her. One represents the future, one the past but in their present is a game of chess so complex the reader needs to run to keep up. “It’s quite a long story,” she says.Īnd so begins the power struggle between them. The teacher presents a worn but still recognisable prefect’s badge for King Henry Grammar School that he found there to The Headmaster and realises she has been expecting this. The day before the new term, Straightly’s Brodie Boys inform him that they have discovered what looks like the remains of a body on the building site, which is to become the Gunderson Building in the school grounds. When I read A Narrow Door I didn’t realise that it was the third book in the Malbry series featuring St Oswalds, following on from Gentleman and Players and A Different Class which explained a couple of queries I had but in fact it reads well as a stand-alone. The girls represented new money and a chance to recover the school’s reputation after an unfortunate incident the year before.

This psychological thriller has two narrators: Ms Rebecca Buckfast and Mr Roy Straightly – respectively the new Headteacher (always referred to as Headmaster by Straightly) and Classics teacher at St Oswald’s, previously an independent grammar school for boys now an academy which includes girls. It is beautifully written with a plot which enthrals, is creepy and sinister with a tension that has you holding your breath as layer upon layer of secrets, lies and intrigues are unravelled. A Narrow Door is, quite simply, practically perfect.

Different class joanne harris synopsis